Greenwashing

October 19, 2009

Rachel Cernansky, reporter at Planet Green recently wrote that "a brand that claims it is helping the environment by manufacturing recyclable products is not doing much more than greenwashing" (see Recyclable Is Not Recycled: Why Recyclable is the Greenwashing-est Word Around). She gives plastic as an example of a product that is bad before, during and after its life cycle as a product. She is absolutely right. Only about 6.8% of all plastics are actually recycled. With such a small "success rate" you can safely say that in all practicality plastic is not really recyclable. Plastic is only marginally recyclable. In that context, taking pride of the fact that the plastic product you buy is green because it is recyclable is absolute greenwashing. I could not agree more.

However, compare plastic with a material such as stainless steel which is so desirable to metal scrap dealers that they will actually pay you to bring back your stainless steel (last time I heard, one could get more than $0.50 per pound for it), I would say that this is a genuinely "green" argument in favour of products made with such material. Stainless steel is extremely easy to recycle into new products through melting and re-moulding. But most of the time, you would rather keep your stainless steel products instead of recycling them because they can last for such a long time, all your life and possibly many generations and beyond.

May 30, 2009

Coca Cola wants to show it cares about the environment by introducing a new "eco-friendly" bottle for its Dasani water line. The new bottle which will be introduced later this year would be made from a blend of
petroleum-based materials and up to 30% of plant-based materials. Initially these materials will include sugarcane and molasses, a by-product of sugar
production. According to Coca Cola, the blend
could make the recycling process easier and cheaper, and reduce the
time that discarded bottles sit in landfills. Are you impressed? You shouldn't be...

You've probably heard about the problem of plastic contamination in recycling plants. The problem is that some of the new plant-based plastics get recycled as if they were polyethylene terephthalate (PET). But when they mix with the other petroleum-based plastics during the recycling process they end up creating a less stable recycled plastic that is of lower quality, hence lower value in the market.

A good illustration of this problem is the Primo Water Bottle which is made of IngeoTM, 100% corn-based plastic made by Minnesota-based Natureworks. It composts only in high-temperature commercial composting systems. It looks the same
as PET plastic, which makes it difficult to distinguish from regular
plastics in the
recycling mix so it contaminates the quality of PET recycled plastics. Morever, PLA melts at lower temperatures, recyclers say, a nuisance in dryers
used to process recycled PET. Therefore, it can only be recycled in recycling facilities that are equipped to deal with it. The company encourages the recycling of the bottles over its composting, but admits that although the technology to adequately recycle IngeoTM plastic used in Primo bottles exists today, it "is not
universally accessible." (http://www.primowater.com/single-serve_faq.php)

So, what Coca Cola is creating is a monster because the two different types
of polymers (plant-based and petroleum-based) are actually blended in together making it much less
desirable for recycling purposes and impossible to compost, let alone incinerate (unlike 100% PLA plastics, this blend would emit dioxins). So you end up with a bottle that is
not biodegradable nor compostable while not being recyclable. Coca Cola was actually doing better for the environment before it tried to be "eco-friendly". Best would have been to stick to glass. Coke is one of the biggest producers of plastic bottles. Consumers drain about a billion plastic
PET bottles every week, with only 18-23% recycled, according to the Container Recycling Institute, a non-profit advocacy group in Washington.

- Chantal

(Sources: "Corn plastic sounds great, but it's tough to recycle and may foul systems"by Scott Learn, The Oregonian, October 27, 2008; "Coke to release new ‘Earth-friendly’ bio-bottle within days" by Bill Bruce, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 14, 2009)